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OTTAWA - The RCMP will not act on information Prime Minister Stephen Harper provided about the activities of one his former cabinet ministers, Helena Guergis, raising fresh questions about the judgment of the PM and his closest advisors.

Last April, Harper fired Guergis as minister of state for status of women, kicked her out of caucus, and provided the RCMP and Parliament's ethics commissioner with information about the activities that prompted him to take such drastic action.

Within days, Ethics Commissioner Mary Dawson found no reason to open a file on Guergis and now the RCMP are closing the books on Harper's complaint.

"The RCMP has concluded that there was no substance to any of the issues forwarded to them by the prime minister's office," Guergis' lawyer Howard Rubel said in a statement. "All concerns relating to Ms. Guergis have been resolved and no issues remain outstanding." Guergis is now an independent MP representing an Ontario riding.

NDP MP Pat Martin said it's time for Harper to explain his conduct.

"Just what is it the prime minister has on her?" Martin said. "Did the prime minister over-react based on the flimsiest of allegations?

"If so he owes Helena Guergis an apology and probably an out of court settlement." By the time she was fired from cabinet on April 9, Guergis had become a political liability for Harper and the Conservatives. She threw a fit at an airport in Charlottetown and her staff were caught writing letters to editors of papers in her Ontario riding extolling her virtues, but did so without identifying themselves as her employees.

Political insiders in Ottawa say Harper was looking for any excuse to get rid of her. When allegations surfaced that she and her husband, Rahim Jaffer, may have held some meetings in the presence of cocaine users and prostitutes, he found the perfect excuse. Both Jaffer and Guergis have denied consorting with any such individuals.

Nonetheless, the Conservatives are now saying that several factors were at play in Harper's decision to drop-kick Guergis.

"The actions by the RCMP and the ethics commissioner are separate from the decisions of the Conservative caucus, which holds its members to a high standard of conduct," says a talking points memo circulated to Tory MPs Wednesday afternoon. "The RCMP's decision to not lay charges does not affect the decision to expel Ms. Guergis from caucus." Despite repeated questioning by opposition politicians in the House of Commons, neither Harper nor any member of the government has ever said what it was that Guergis did to deserve Harper's wrath.

No prime minister had referred allegations about one of his or her own cabinet ministers to the police since Brian Mulroney.

But Arthur Hamilton, the lawyer for the Conservative Party of Canada, told a House of Commons committee earlier this year that Guergis was axed because Harper was led to believe that Guergis was helping her husband, former MP Rahim Jaffer, further a business scheme set up to defraud investors.

The allegations first came to Hamilton's attention from Derrick Snowdy, a Toronto-based private investigator.

"The basis of (Snowdy's) allegations was ... there is a significant attempt by (Jaffer's business partner) and Mr. Jaffer to defraud potential investors as they hold themselves out as venture capitalists," Hamilton told the House of Commons committee.

"Mr. Jaffer was creating the illusion that he was ultra-connected with the Conservative government and that he could make funds available and effectively open doors to potential investors. Ms. Guergis assisted and amplified that aura of connectedness." But although the ethics commissioner is still looking at Guergis on a separate complaint that she tried to help a business in her riding that Jaffer was thinking about investing in, no office or police force is now investigating any of the information Harper first had.